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Watch KHL player deke two defenders and score while falling to his knees

Nikolai Lemtyugov went from scoring just one goal in all of 2014-15 to having a KHL goal of the year candidate under his belt. Watch as the 29-year-old winger dekes two defenders and patiently outwaits the goaltender before slipping the puck home while falling to his knees.

Nikolai Lemtyugov scored just one goal in 39 KHL games in 2014-15, but six games into the 2015-16 season and he already has a potential goal of the year under his belt.

In a weekend matchup between Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Avangard Omsk, Lemtyugov found the score sheet for the second time in the new campaign and he did so in style. Lemtyugov scooped the puck up off the boards following a dump in, used two quick dekes to get around a pair of Metallurg defenders and then, while losing his balance, patiently outwaited Magnitogorsk goaltender Vasily Koshechkin to slip the puck home.

That’s some nice work from Lemtyugov, especially following a year in which it looked like any scoring touch he had had dried up.

Lemtyugov has never made the jump to the NHL, but his name may sound familiar to St. Louis Blues fans. At the 2005 draft, the Blues selected Lemtyugov in the seventh round, 219th overall, and while he never suited up in the big league, he did play nearly 100 games for the Blues’ then-AHL farm club, the Peoria Rivermen.